Poor language proficiency among State Officers - Survey

Shirley Wijesinghe

The very low percentage of officers proficient in Tamil in the Public
Administrations service is hampering the full implementation of the
Official Language Policy, a survey conducted by Official Language
Commission revealed.

According to the survey, the availability of officers proficient in
Tamil in 44 of the offices which were surveyed located outside the
Northern and Eastern Provinces, where the administrative language is
Sinhala, is at a low level.

On the other hand the availability of officers proficient in Sinhala
in offices in the Northern and Eastern provinces is also is at a low
level .

In the provinces outside the North-East, there is an acute shortage
of officers proficient in the Second language, where the percentage of
officers proficient in Tamil is 9.5 percent compared with 18.1 percent
of officers proficient in Sinhala in the North-East. However OLC
officials revealed that none of the offices targeted in this survey had
the full cadre or the strength in their staff to cater to the needs for
the implementation of the official language policy.